GRCooper:Old_Chief_Scott: Weaver95: I just don't understand why we seem to be gearing up to attack syria. If I were anyone living in the middle east I'd think the us is nuts. Well armed and very hypocritical too...but mostly insane. This makes no sense to me.

I agree. If it's really about Assad there are plenty of other ways to take him out. My concern is that the so-called "rebel alliance" ( rebel scum?) doesn't really have the backing of the citizenry. It looks more like every man for himself.

It's a religious civil war. Shiia against Sunni.

Helping one side against the other will translate into "the USA has chosen to persecute the Alawite (Shiia) in favor of the Sunni" throughout much of the Islamic world

Reason #1 we shouldn't touch this mess ...

The Sunnis are our BFFs in the region: Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Al qaeda...

simplicimus:GRCooper: Old_Chief_Scott: Weaver95: I just don't understand why we seem to be gearing up to attack syria. If I were anyone living in the middle east I'd think the us is nuts. Well armed and very hypocritical too...but mostly insane. This makes no sense to me.

I agree. If it's really about Assad there are plenty of other ways to take him out. My concern is that the so-called "rebel alliance" ( rebel scum?) doesn't really have the backing of the citizenry. It looks more like every man for himself.

It's a religious civil war. Shiia against Sunni.

Helping one side against the other will translate into "the USA has chosen to persecute the Alawite (Shiia) in favor of the Sunni" throughout much of the Islamic world

Reason #1 we shouldn't touch this mess ...

The Sunnis are our BFFs in the region: Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Al qaeda...

simplicimus:GRCooper: Old_Chief_Scott: Weaver95: I just don't understand why we seem to be gearing up to attack syria. If I were anyone living in the middle east I'd think the us is nuts. Well armed and very hypocritical too...but mostly insane. This makes no sense to me.

I agree. If it's really about Assad there are plenty of other ways to take him out. My concern is that the so-called "rebel alliance" ( rebel scum?) doesn't really have the backing of the citizenry. It looks more like every man for himself.

It's a religious civil war. Shiia against Sunni.

Helping one side against the other will translate into "the USA has chosen to persecute the Alawite (Shiia) in favor of the Sunni" throughout much of the Islamic world

Reason #1 we shouldn't touch this mess ...

The Sunnis are our BFFs in the region: Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Al qaeda...

WTF Indeed:Nothing will happen. Any strike against Israel would be met with a regime-changing response. Syria knows that they'll lose some missile batteries and logistics so widening the war by attacking anyone else is stupid if they want to defeat the rebels and remain power.

another twist is any retaliation by Israel will be me with an everyone-attack-israel response from the whole middle east. Remember Gulf War 1? Iraq was doing it's damndest to drag Israel into the war by firing scuds into Tel Aviv but the US managed to convince Israel to not retaliate ( buy whoever made that sale a coke btw ).

Heard on the news this morning that someone in congress asked "how does attacking Syria make the US safer?". That's a really good question and I believe the president has to have an answer in order to use force outside of the UN and congress but i could be wrong. I don't believe the easy answer "but Assad has chemical weapons" is good enough anymore.

YixilTesiphon:simplicimus: GRCooper: Old_Chief_Scott: Weaver95: I just don't understand why we seem to be gearing up to attack syria. If I were anyone living in the middle east I'd think the us is nuts. Well armed and very hypocritical too...but mostly insane. This makes no sense to me.

I agree. If it's really about Assad there are plenty of other ways to take him out. My concern is that the so-called "rebel alliance" ( rebel scum?) doesn't really have the backing of the citizenry. It looks more like every man for himself.

It's a religious civil war. Shiia against Sunni.

Helping one side against the other will translate into "the USA has chosen to persecute the Alawite (Shiia) in favor of the Sunni" throughout much of the Islamic world

Reason #1 we shouldn't touch this mess ...

The Sunnis are our BFFs in the region: Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Al qaeda...

lockers:Which all goes back to there being zero upside to starting a war with Syria. The consequences will be huge and the benefits are zilch. Expect this whole thing to blow up in our face.

Expect the British press to beat the drums and try and stir the pot.

They will try to drag the US into some kind of lame action. Lame would be lobbing a fiew cruise missles. The US would have to be mindless, literally mindless to get sucked into another expensive action....that solves little.

netcentric:lockers: Which all goes back to there being zero upside to starting a war with Syria. The consequences will be huge and the benefits are zilch. Expect this whole thing to blow up in our face.

Expect the British press to beat the drums and try and stir the pot.

They will try to drag the US into some kind of lame action. Lame would be lobbing a fiew cruise missles. The US would have to be mindless, literally mindless to get sucked into another expensive action....that solves little.

ciberido:Did you have an actual argument against TheShavingofOccam123's point, or did you just come into the thread to insult and mock people?

Since I can't seem to figure out what a non-operational test nuclear device (Tsar Bomba), Hiroshima, and missile strikes in Syria have in common, or even apply in this context, I'm going with mocking.

Even if the Russians had another Tsar Bomba, it was useless as a combat weapon.Hiroshima was the first nuclear detonation. No one knew the full effects of atomic weapons at the time.Neither of them have anything to do with tactical, conventional strikes in Syria unless it is to use nuclear weapons as a fear tactic.

There are enough reasons not to get involved in Syria without trying to manufacture more.

In my mind the long lasting effects from global nuclear warfare would be economic and disease. You can count on total economic collapse and a rise in various cancers and birth defects from radiation exposure. I believe everything else would follow from those two long lasting catastrophes.

J. Frank Parnell:UrukHaiGuyz: Was the concept of nuclear winter debunked when I wasn't looking?

It would seem so.

Skimmed through that thread, and it still seems fairly inconclusive what type of climactic disruptions would/could occur. What doesn't seem uncertain is that a large-scale nuclear war would kill billions through disruptions to the food supply chain alone. So....yeah.

TheShavingofOccam123's point, or did you just come into the thread to insult and mock people?

Since I can't seem to figure out what a non-operational test nuclear device (Tsar Bomba), Hiroshima, and missile strikes in Syria have in common, or even apply in this context, I'm going with mocking.

Even if the Russians had another Tsar Bomba, it was useless as a combat weapon.Hiroshima was the first nuclear detonation. No one knew the full effects of atomic weapons at the time.Neither of them have anything to do with tactical, conventional strikes in Syria unless it is to use nuclear weapons as a fear tactic.

There are enough reasons not to get involved in Syria without trying to manufacture more.

Ok. How about some pre-cold war era hysteria instead? Here's why we invented that little burp called Hiroshima.

Harry Truman, on the approach to approving the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, said he didn't want"another Okinawa from one end of Japan to the other."

Well, let's examine Okinawa and see why it was so bad and so fore-boding...

In the battle of Okinawa, 250,000 people were killed in a battle over 463 square miles that lasted 82 days.Among US losses were 12 destroyers and 768 aircraft.

Now let's expand that to match the size of Japan's 4 main islands. They are 302 times larger than Okinawa. The math yields the following:

The battle for mainland Japan would have lasted 68 years, killed 76,000,000 people with 3600 destroyers sunk and 231,936 aircraft destroyed.* That's why the little bomb we dropped on Hiroshima was invented.

Ok. How about some pre-cold war era hysteria instead? Here's why we invented that little burp called Hiroshima.

Harry Truman, on the approach to approving the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, said he didn't want"another Okinawa from one end of Japan to the other."

Well, let's examine Okinawa and see why it was so bad and so fore-boding...

In the battle of Okinawa, 250,000 people were killed in a battle over 463 square miles that lasted 82 days.Among US losses were 12 destroyers and 768 aircraft.

Now let's expand that to match the size of Japan's 4 main islands. They are 302 times larger than Okinawa. The math yields the following:

The battle for mainland Japan would have lasted 68 years, killed 76,000,000 people with 3600 destroyers sunk and 231,936 aircraft destroyed.* That's why the little bomb we dropped on Hiroshima was invented.

Ok. How about some pre-cold war era hysteria instead? Here's why we invented that little burp called Hiroshima.

Harry Truman, on the approach to approving the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, said he didn't want"another Okinawa from one end of Japan to the other."

Well, let's examine Okinawa and see why it was so bad and so fore-boding...

In the battle of Okinawa, 250,000 people were killed in a battle over 463 square miles that lasted 82 days.Among US losses were 12 destroyers and 768 aircraft.

Now let's expand that to match the size of Japan's 4 main islands. They are 302 times larger than Okinawa. The math yields the following:

The battle for mainland Japan would have lasted 68 years, killed 76,000,000 people with 3600 destroyers sunk and 231,936 aircraft destroyed.* That's why the little bomb we dropped on Hiroshima was invented.

netcentric:The US would have to be mindless, literally mindless to get sucked into another expensive action....that solves little.

The course is laid. Come hell or high water, we are going to get involved in this unpopular mess. At this point the only rational course is to paint everyone cheerleading this as the deluded chicken hawks they are. Remind them constantly of just how insipid and disastrous this course of action is. The only reason they can give is to stop chemical attacks, which this has zero chance of accomplishing. What the result will be is to create another Iran and 9/11. This will be Obama's legacy and it will not be a kind one.

Ok. How about some pre-cold war era hysteria instead? Here's why we invented that little burp called Hiroshima.

Harry Truman, on the approach to approving the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, said he didn't want"another Okinawa from one end of Japan to the other."

Well, let's examine Okinawa and see why it was so bad and so fore-boding...

In the battle of Okinawa, 250,000 people were killed in a battle over 463 square miles that lasted 82 days.Among US losses were 12 destroyers and 768 aircraft.

Now let's expand that to match the size of Japan's 4 main islands. They are 302 times larger than Okinawa. The math yields the following:

The battle for mainland Japan would have lasted 68 years, killed 76,000,000 people with 3600 destroyers sunk and 231,936 aircraft destroyed.* That's why the little bomb we dropped on Hiroshima was invented.

nekom:sno man:It's your habit of drawing lines in the sand. Eventually when those lines keep getting crossed you have to do something, or no one will take you seriously. Not that many do in that region anyway...

You mean like when Bush said we would NOT tolerate a nuclear best Korea, then when they tested a few nukes we totally did absolutely nothing about it?

AngryDragon:ciberido: Did you have an actual argument against TheShavingofOccam123's point, or did you just come into the thread to insult and mock people?

Since I can't seem to figure out what a non-operational test nuclear device (Tsar Bomba), Hiroshima, and missile strikes in Syria have in common, or even apply in this context, I'm going with mocking.

Even if the Russians had another Tsar Bomba, it was useless as a combat weapon.Hiroshima was the first nuclear detonation. No one knew the full effects of atomic weapons at the time.Neither of them have anything to do with tactical, conventional strikes in Syria unless it is to use nuclear weapons as a fear tactic.

There are enough reasons not to get involved in Syria without trying to manufacture more.

I agree, but to nitpick, the Trinity test at Alamagordo was the first nuke detonation, not Hiroshima.

TheShavingofOccam123:The battle for mainland Japan would have lasted 68 years, killed 76,000,000 people with 3600 destroyers sunk and 231,936 aircraft destroyed.* That's why the little bomb we dropped on Hiroshima was invented.

Mike_1962:AngryDragon: ciberido: Did you have an actual argument against TheShavingofOccam123's point, or did you just come into the thread to insult and mock people?

Since I can't seem to figure out what a non-operational test nuclear device (Tsar Bomba), Hiroshima, and missile strikes in Syria have in common, or even apply in this context, I'm going with mocking.

Even if the Russians had another Tsar Bomba, it was useless as a combat weapon.Hiroshima was the first nuclear combat detonation. No one knew the full effects of atomic weapons at the time.Neither of them have anything to do with tactical, conventional strikes in Syria unless it is to use nuclear weapons as a fear tactic.

There are enough reasons not to get involved in Syria without trying to manufacture more.

I agree, but to nitpick, the Trinity test at Alamagordo was the first nuke detonation, not Hiroshima.